White House News: Bishops Say Prayer Became Photo Op
Two Catholic bishops have said publicly that a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, which they attended in good faith to discuss issues facing their communities, was turned into a campaign photograph without their consent. The bishops met the president in the Oval Office on Thursday, October 22, prayed with him, and then watched as photographs and video of the prayer were published by the White House within hours. On Sunday, October 25, the Archbishop of Milwaukee issued a public apology to his flock, and the Bishop of Des Moines issued a statement of his own, saying the White House had exploited a sacred moment for political purposes less than two weeks before the midterm elections.
The episode has become one of the most striking illustrations of the tension between the Trump administration and the Catholic Church in the president’s second term. The bishops had accepted the invitation because they believed it was a chance to raise concerns about immigration enforcement, visas for foreign-born clergy, abortion, and federal support for private education. Instead, they say, they found themselves standing behind the president in the Oval Office while staff photographers took pictures, and were then ushered out. The images were posted on social media the same day, and the president’s campaign account shared the video as the country entered the final stretch of the midterm campaign.
Archbishop Jeffrey Grob of Milwaukee, who led the public response, said the bishops had not given permission for the photographs or the video to be published. In a statement titled “A Public Apology,” he said he had received many questions and comments about the meeting, some of them distraught, and that he felt a heavy sadness over what had happened. “I feel a heavy sadness, not only over the pain I caused, but also for the fact that something so sacred to a group of religious leaders, prayer to our Heavenly Father, would be manipulated in that way,” he wrote. Bishop William Joensen of Des Moines, Iowa, was equally direct. “I wish I had been more shrewd and less simple, like those who exploited our meeting for partisan political purpose,” he wrote, adding that he prayed he would be more prudent and wise going forward, even as he remained resolute in his openness to engaging and praying for political leaders at all levels.
The White House has not apologised. Asked whether the bishops had or had not given consent for the photographs and video to be released, the press office declined to answer the question. Instead, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers issued a statement praising the president’s record. “There has never been a greater president for Catholic Americans than President Trump, and his strong record proves it,” Rogers said. The response did not address the bishops’ account of how the meeting was arranged, what they had been told to expect, or whether anyone had asked their permission before publishing the images.
White House News: What Happened at the Meeting
The meeting was arranged by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative organisation with close ties to the president’s political movement, according to Grob’s statement. It was the second of two gatherings the foundation had arranged between Catholic bishops and the administration. The invitation to the bishops had been extended in September, and it offered discussion about issues affecting Catholic communities: immigration enforcement, religious worker visas, abortion, and the use of federal tax credits to support private education. Grob said the bishops expected a private discussion, a possible appearance by several Catholic members of the president’s Cabinet, and an opportunity to pray privately with the president.
Twelve bishops attended the meeting on Thursday, October 22. According to Grob’s account, they first met with White House staff and advisers, and then went into the Oval Office, where Trump greeted them and gave them commemorative tokens. The Catholic leaders were then directed to stand behind the president and pray, while staff took several photographs, before the bishops were ushered out of the room. A video of the prayer was posted on social media by Margo Martin, a special assistant and communications adviser to Trump. Grob said the video was published without the consent of the participants.
The speed of the publication is central to the bishops’ complaint. Grob said it did not take long after the meeting for the White House to post the video and photographs, and that he soon began receiving messages of serious concern. Some people wrote to him worried that he had inadvertently participated in a political event less than two weeks before a national election. Others told him they felt wounded because of the ways they or their families had been harmed by the president’s policies. The timing mattered to the bishops because the images carried an unmistakable political message: twelve Catholic leaders, robed and bowed in prayer, standing behind the president in the most famous room in American government, days before voters go to the polls.
The video was not only posted by White House staff. The president’s campaign account also shared it, which is what turned a White House record of a meeting into campaign material in the bishops’ eyes. Grob was explicit that the meeting had not been intended to support Trump, his policies, or his party, and that the bishops’ participation should not be read as a political endorsement. “We came in good faith to try to work for the betterment of our fellow human beings, to ease their suffering, to build up the common good, and to pray with a president, not to pose for a political photo opportunity to benefit the few,” he said.
Trump News: The Bishops’ Apology
Grob’s statement, published on Sunday, October 25, three days after the meeting, was framed as an apology to the people of his archdiocese and to Catholics more widely. He said the group should never have been put in the position the White House had put them in, and he accepted that the harm was real even though the bishops had not intended it. The tone of the statement was sorrowful rather than angry, and it was striking precisely because bishops rarely issue public apologies of this kind, and almost never about a meeting with a sitting president.
The archbishop described how the meeting had unfolded from the bishops’ point of view. They had gone to Washington expecting a working conversation about issues that matter to Catholic parishes and institutions across the country. They had expected, at most, a quiet moment of prayer. What they got, in Grob’s telling, was a staged photograph. He did not accuse any individual by name of deception, but he left no doubt that the bishops had been misled about the nature of the event. Permission for the public distribution or posting of either the video or the photographs, he said, was not given by the bishops.
Joensen’s statement, issued the same weekend, was shorter but no less pointed. The Bishop of Des Moines said the White House had taken advantage of the bishops, and he wished he had been more shrewd and less simple in dealing with people who, in his words, exploited the meeting for partisan political purpose. Like Grob, he stressed that he remained open to meeting and praying with political leaders at every level. The point of both statements was not that bishops should refuse to engage with the government. It was that engagement had been turned into something else, and that the bishops had not agreed to that.
Midterm Elections 2026: Why the Timing Matters
The meeting took place on October 22, twelve days before the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, and the photographs were published the same day. That proximity is the heart of the bishops’ complaint. A photograph of twelve bishops praying with the president, released by the White House and shared by the president’s campaign, reads as an endorsement whether or not it was intended as one, and it was released at the moment when it would carry the most political value.
The political context makes the episode more sensitive. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that Trump’s approval ratings among members of every religious group are among the lowest of his second term. Among United States Catholics, his approval rating fell from 47 percent in January 2025 to 30 percent. That decline helps explain why an image of Catholic bishops praying with the president would be valuable to the White House in the final days of a campaign, and why the bishops would be so concerned about being seen to endorse a president whose standing among their own people has fallen sharply.
Immigration News: What the Bishops Wanted to Discuss
The substance of the meeting has been overshadowed by the controversy over the photographs, but the issues the bishops went to discuss are among the most contentious of the second Trump administration. According to Grob and Joensen, the invitation offered discussion about immigration enforcement, religious worker visas, abortion, and the use of federal tax credits to support private education. Those are the issues that affect Catholic parishes, schools, hospitals, and charities every day, and they are the issues on which the bishops have been most outspoken.
Catholic bishops have been vocal about immigration enforcement, religious liberty, abortion, and assistance for vulnerable people throughout the president’s second term. The administration’s enforcement policies have affected Catholic communities directly, including immigrant parishioners and the foreign-born clergy who serve in many American dioceses. Religious worker visas, which allow priests and religious workers from other countries to serve in the United States, have been a particular concern for bishops who rely on international clergy to staff their parishes. The bishops accepted the White House invitation because they thought the conversation might improve people’s lives, and because they believed that engaging with the government, even a government whose policies they oppose, was part of their responsibility.
Trump Approval Rating: The White House Response
The White House response to the bishops’ statements was brief and did not engage with their account. The press office declined to answer when asked whether it had or had not received the bishops’ consent for releasing the photographs and video. Instead, spokeswoman Taylor Rogers replied with a statement about the president’s record with Catholic Americans. “There has never been a greater president for Catholic Americans than President Trump, and his strong record proves it,” she said. The response did not address the bishops’ criticism of the White House visit, and it did not explain why the photographs and video had been published so quickly, or why the campaign account had shared them.
That silence is significant. The bishops’ central claim is a factual one: that they did not give permission for the images to be published. The White House has not disputed that claim, and has not produced any evidence of consent. Instead, it has responded with a general statement about the president’s record, which is a political answer to a factual question. The bishops, for their part, have not escalated the dispute. They have not threatened legal action, and they have not called for any investigation. They have simply put their account on the record, apologised to the people they serve, and said they will be more careful in future.
White House News: What Happens Next
There is no indication that the dispute will go further in any formal sense. The bishops have said what they wanted to say, and the White House has said what it wanted to say. The photographs and the video remain in circulation, and they will continue to be shared in the final days of the campaign. The bishops’ statements will also continue to circulate, and they will be cited by critics of the administration and by people who follow the relationship between the Catholic Church and American politics.
Source: The Guardian